LEARNING TO TEACH IN SECOND LIFE

Angelina Macedo

EB 23 Gualdim Pais, Tomar, Portugal

angelina.m.macedo@gmail.com

Lina Morgado Universidade Aberta, Portugal

lmorgado@univ-ab.pt

Keywords: Second Life, immersive learning, lifelong learning, Web 2.0 tools

Abstract: The rapid evolution of ICTs in the 21st century requires highly competent and skilled workers. Distance

education appears to be not only a possible but a highly viable solution to increase the competencies of

those already professionally active. Virtual environments such as Moodle and Second Life with Web 2.0

tools now allow for socialisation and social presence in the process of distant learning thus facilitating

cooperation, interaction and more interest on the part of the students. These new learning environments also

make it possible to learn by doing as people learn how to use them as they are participating in the distance

learning courses. The European Union, aware of the advantages of these pedagogical approaches, is funding

projects for lifelong learning such as the MUVEnation programme. Several studies and current research lead

us to conclude that these tools and Second Life, in particular, have great potential for teaching and learning

as they enhance the development of socialization skills, peer and group work, critical thinking and problem

solving. At the same time it is recognised that further research is required in order to overcome certain

drawbacks.

1 INTRODUCTION

The constant evolution of ICTs and the demands of

the 21st century made learning crucial to our

knowledge and networked society. Therefore,

companies and the industry are interested in skilled

and competent workers as a way of enhancing their

outcomes.

Lifelong learning, with continuing professional

training and development, is a must in our society.

As workers are very busy with both their

professional and personal lives, taking a face-to-face

course is almost impossible. Therefore distance

education is an emergent solution with the advances

in ICTs.

Virtual environments such as Moodle and Second

Life can promote interaction, cooperation and

collaboration between students and e-teachers as

well as between peers.

One of the drawbacks of traditional distance

education has been the fact that students tend to feel

lonely, isolated leading to very high drop rates.

These virtual environments allow new pedagogical

approaches that enhance collaboration, as well as

both asynchronous and synchronous interactions

between participants.

The MUVEnation peer learning programme [1], co-

funded by the European Union, via the Lifelong

Learning Programme, Comenius sub-programme,

aims to encourage teachers to develop new

pedagogical methods to increase students‟

motivation. It encourages the use of Web 2.0 tools

such as blogs for personal reflection, wikis for

collaborative work, Flickr to share photos, Twitter

for microblogging, etc. Moodle is used as the

learning management system and Second Life is

being explored for educational applications.

2 SECOND LIFE

Second life is a Multi-User Virtual Environment

(MUVE) that allows students and teachers to

collaborate actively in projects, and to exchange

ideas and information in-world.

Second Life (SL) is a world that tries to reproduce

the real one, including the development of rules and

even its own economy. People are represented by

their avatars (their 3D representations) and they

communicate through chat (voice or written text),

notecards, their profiles or Instant Messages (IM .

The latter are delivered if the resident is not online at

the moment s/he logs in.

Figure 1 – Avatar‟s profile: Morgen String (author

proposal)

Second life also provides educational resources,

links, a wiki and a blog for educators. Linden

Research (2006) [2] made an agreement with ISTE,

for example, to help new people in-world and it also

supports teaching in SL (Terdiman, 2004) [3].

Livingstone and Kemp (2006) [4] also studied and

gathered the main features that make SL a good tool

for education.

This virtual world has the potential to develop a

simulation of „real life‟ skills and competencies or to

create new worlds (De Lucia et al, 2009) [5] rather

than „academic life‟, that is, it can enhance an

experiential learning through activities such as

simulations and role-plays.

It also promotes immersive learning as the learner

can potentially experience the emotions and

thoughts of someone in a simulated situation.

It is also possible to implement learning models that

enhance the cognitive structures of the learner

(Piaget in Bhattacharya, K. & Han, S., 2001) [6],

where students can engage in an active learning

process which is student-centred (Bruner, 1960) [7]

and guided by an expert or faculty mentor/tutor who

interacts with the students (Vygotsky, in Galloway,

2001) [8]. This kind of learning allows an active

development of competencies based on evidence as

students actively construct new knowledge as they

interact with other people and their environment

(Jonassen, 1992) [9]. Students are supposed to

produce collaboratively tangible outcomes or

products (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989) [10] such

as a building plan, a car prototype, etc, according to

the nature of the knowledge that is being built. It

also potentiates the creation of communities of

practice where people learn by sharing. These

communities can be described as groups of people

who share a concern or a passion for something they

do and learn how to do it better as they interact

regularly. (Wenger, 2000) [11]. The Iowa State

University has already created the NMC Educational

Community and below is their virtual representation

of Wenger‟s Communities of Practice. (SL Island:

Teaching 4 231, 155, 25).

Figure 2 – NMC Educational Community (author

proposal)

Because of the great potential SL has already shown,

several companies and educational institutions have

established their own lands/islands in this virtual

world.

2.1 Second Life for educational

purposes

2.1.1 Training and Skills Development

Second Life enhances the development of skills and

competencies in all the fields as is shown below.

The Thomson Netg develops professional training in

ICTs, management, sales and customer support. It

uses SL for synchronous classes and on-demand

training through audio, video or podcasts resources.

Their students can interact with technological

applications and do role-play activities.

Figure 3 - Thomson Netg Training (Source: FitzGerald,

& Kay) [12]

As far as the Health field is concerned, SL allows

the immersion in an authentic context that enhances

a deeper knowledge of situations or circumstances.

For instance, the Heart Murmur Sim aims to provide

a place for cardiac training where the participants

can visit virtual patients, listen to their cardiac

rhythms and make a diagnosis.

Figure 4 – Cardiac Training (Source: FitzGerald, &

Kay) [12]

UC Davis Medical Center‟s Emergency Workers

aims to prepare, train and help its workers to act in

emergency situations, in a simulated context before

acting in a real world crisis.

Another important work is being done by the

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration. It has created the visualization in

real time of some weather phenomena such as a

tsunami or the effects of melting glaciers on the

ocean level.

The goals of this island are to stimulate scientific

discussion and reflection upon climate issues and, at

the same time, allow participants to engage in

simulations that wouldn‟t be possible in the real

world.

Figure 5 - National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) island in SL (Source:

FitzGerald, & Kay) [12]

2.1.2 Training in-service and future

professionals

Second Life enhances social interaction,

collaboration, the awareness of social global issues,

events, data visualization, simple simulations and

education.

It allows for the development of a new model for

distance education as well as blended learning, and

new opportunities for virtual learning. Students and

tutors can meet in-world, share information and

resources (audio and video files, for instance),

discuss projects, make presentations, and do group

projects. They can also interact with other

educational institutions and develop international

projects. This virtual world eases communication and sharing,

key elements in the learning process. Students can

make simulations where they can learn from their

mistakes and develop new skills to apply in their real

lives.

Several educational institutions like the Harvard

University, the Leicester University, the

Universidade de Aveiro, do Porto, and the Open

University (UK), among others, have their own

educational spaces in SL where they deliver some

courses in several fields.

The Open University of Portugal has implemented a

case study to obtain information about students‟

perceptions of social presence both in Moodle and in

SL in order to design and deliver teaching and

learning activities in both virtual environments.

The NMC (New Media Consortium) Campus is the

most important educational institution in SL. It

supports events, classes, demonstrations, art exhibits

and educational experiences.

Several well-known educators such as Howard

Rheingold, Henry Jenkins and Daniel Reed, have

been in conferences at this campus.

The Harvard‟s Berkman Center for Internet and

Society delivers a course to create and present

Internet and Web 2.0 tools such as Wikis e blogs.

The students also meet in-world at Berkman Island.

The Texas Wesleyan University has got the Genome

Island in SL, which was developed by Professor

Mary Anne Clark with the aim of teaching Genetics.

With the help of building tools and scripting, she

built laboratories where the students can participate

in virtual experiences and produce data for analysis.

The students can also interact with experts in

Genetics to broaden their knowledge.

Figure 6 –Texas Wesleyan University Genome Island

(Source: FitzGerald, & Kay) [12]

Besides the above institutions, BBC realized the SL

potential to teach foreign languages, mainly English,

having created its own space at Virtlantis 116.114.21

(PG). This institution blends SL with Internet pages,

supporting the learning of several issues. Virtlantis

island is formed by foreign language educators and

is an example of best educational practices in SL. Also another excellent work is being developed by

Jo Kay and Sean FitzGerald [12] about Second Life

which can be found in their wiki Second Life in

Education.

Facilitating informal learning is also one of the

concerns in SL. Museums, libraries, Historical

Recreations, Art and Music Literature, Machinima,

Social issues debates, Politics, Civics, Economy,

Commerce, Architecture, support for disabled

people, virtual tourism, cultural immersion have a

strong implementation in SL.

2.1.3 Pedagogical activities

According to Warburton & Perez-Garcia (2007) [13]

and Warburton (2009) [14], Second Life has some

components that can facilitate innovation in pedagogy

through extended or rich interaction, visualization and

contextualization, exposure to authentic content and

culture, individual and collective identity play,

immersion in a 3-D environment, simulation,

community presence and content production.

SL allows the implementation of distance learning

models where students can engage in an active

learning process which is student-centred and guided

by an expert or faculty mentor/tutor that interacts with

the students (Pereira et al., 2008) [15], (Morgado et

al., 2008) [16].

SL ability to create a sense of belonging, a shared

space, and the sharing of experiences makes it ideal to

develop pedagogical activities such as discussions,

debates, presentations, simulations, role play,

conferences, exhibits, Treasure Hunts and virtual

quests.

This way SL provides a wide range of possibilities

that wouldn‟t be possible in the real world.

In-world you can perform a Shakespeare play for a

vast audience, visit a virtual museum, plan your own

house and visit it, check the space, the furniture,

make adjustments… You can also visit Ancient

Rome, prepare a Treasure Hunt where your students

can find relevant information.

You can also visit the Sistine Chapel, enter a Van

Gogh painting or simulate flights at NASA.

Real time conferences, with people – avatars from

all over the world, in the same virtual room, at the

same time, allow debating important topics.

Fashion students can organize a fashion show. The

Management students can create a company and

check the way it works with taking real risks with

real money.

The presentations through white boards may be kept

in the participants inventory and retrieved later on.

In conclusion, SL has a great potential for distance

education, supports computer mediated cooperative

and collaborative work, simulations and

formal/informal learning and training. It allows each

individual to develop skills and competencies, to try

new ideas and to learn from the mistakes they make.

It also enriches the curriculum and complements

face-to-face education.

2.1.4 MUVEnation in SL

Currently learners are used to technology so it‟s

important to integrate them in the classroom through

meaningful activities that engage the students.

According to Oblinger (2003, in Martinez, 2007)

[17] students today expect technology to be a natural

part of any learning environment because, it has

been an integrated part of their lives. They expect

technology to be a natural part of any learning

environment.

Students think in terms of the activity technology

enables and prefer construct their own learning,

assembling information, tools and frameworks from

a variety of sources. (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005)

[18].

Therefore, I began planning a teaching module in

Second Life and felt the need to be a learner first. So

I joined the postgraduate course “Teaching and

Learning with MUVEs” inserted in the

MUVEnation project. [1]

This programme aims at developing a European peer

learning program. But the fact is that people from all

over the world are participating in this project,

which has been very enriching as we learn from one

another‟s experience. “The MUVEnation project‟s

general aim is to contribute to explore, analyse,

develop and evaluate within context the

effectiveness of this innovative way of teaching and

learning with regard to some of the problems of the

educational system such as students‟ motivation and

participation. MUVEnation is based on the so called

“teachers‟ effect” on educational innovation and its

approach is to explore the promising potential of

active learning approaches integrated to MUVEs by

starting from the analysis of some major educational

problems such as the lack of motivation and find

how their integration in education can effectively

foster pupils‟ motivation and participation.”[1]

The course was structured in Moodle where the

learning activities were described. We could

exchange information and clarify any question or

doubt in the online discussion forums.

First, we were asked to get familiar with Web 2.0

tools and create our tools: blog, flickr, twitter,

netvibes and we also set our presence at the wiki of

the course. Then we created our accounts in Second

Life, chose our avatars and did the orientation tasks.

This task is one of the most challenging as it is the

first time that we entered Second Life, completely

on our own. We easily got disorientated, felt

frustrated and were tempted to reject Second Life. A

possible solution to overcome this situation is to set

a time to meet in SL (tutors and peers) just after

being on the orientation island. This way students

could find someone familiar who would help to get

them acquainted with the new world. Another

solution is having an orientation island with the

instructions in the students‟ mother tongue.

After the orientation tasks, we reflected upon several

subjects related to education in Second Life. The

activities that were the most difficult to carry out

were group projects where members lived in

different time zones. So we built our own groups,

keeping in mind the real life place where people

lived. These activities were quite rewarding and we

have been able to build our own learning community

in Second Life.

One of the activities was to observe some Hands-on

Workshops and point out the best practices and what

needed to be improved in order to develop a

taxonomy of good practices.

A Hands-on Workshop is an instructional text based

activity which is delivered to a small group, in a

tutor-led teaching setting where the virtual learning

space can be found configured in a variety of ways.

(Warburton & Perez-Garcia, 2008) [19], [20], [21],

[22], [23], [24]. According to these authors [19] the

workshops in Second Life usually aim to develop

specific competencies and skills in building and/or

scripting in-world objects. They are delivered in

written chat and usually take an hour. These

workshops are delivered by non-formal learning

instructors and most of them are free.

After observing some workshops and discussing best

practices, we observed and agreed on a taxonomy

[24] of good practices. A specific template was built

in order to register our observation. It was validated

by a new panel of teachers.

Then we prepared our own workshop for our peers.

Among them, two were our critical friends. Their

mission was to observe our practice and point out

our best practices and suggest improvements.

Therefore, the methodology was participatory

observation, followed by tutor‟s and critical friends‟

feedback.

The assessment of the workshop was related to the

quality of the students‟ learning experience and

outcomes.

I chose to present a workshop about basic building

in Second Life: How to use the tube (a prim) to build

a table and a stool.

In spite of preparing everything in advance, there are

always some problems that we can't control like

some technical issues that prevent us from doing

everything as planned. For instance, just a bit before

the workshop, I began having trouble with my

Internet connection. I kept crashing and had to opt

by a mobile Internet access which quality isn't the

best. Also I wasn‟t able to rezz a tube because my

upload bandwith was with problems. Even my voice

was heard with cuts, interruptions but the notecard

reader solved this problem. I didn‟t use text chat

because I wanted to be able to look at the

participants and focus on their progresses and/or

problems in order to help them out. At the end of the

workshop, I helped some participants getting a

notecard reader and explained to them how it

worked so that they could use it during their

workshops.

My aim was to design, deliver an interesting and

useful workshop that enhanced the participants to

understand how prims work and create nice objects,

like a table and a stool, just with one prim each.

To perform the task, participants would manipulate a

tube, by setting different parameters, in order to

create a table and a stool. Finally, participants would

texture them.

First, before the workshop, I prepared the virtual

setting: individual, well limited working areas;

stools with a script that allowed avatars to put their

hands up when they had questions; examples of the

objects that were going to be built – a table and a

stool – notecards with all the instructions and a

notecard reader. I asked a friend to test everything in

advance to make sure that there were no problems.

Then, while delivering the workshop I began by

explaining the task and giving the instructions both

through chat voice and a notecard that was being

shown on the notecard reader. Also at the beginning

of the workshop, a folder containing several textures

and a poseball for the stool was given to each

participant.

At the end of the workshop, the notecard was given

to all the participants.

At the end of the workshop, all the participants

managed to create a table and a stool. As some still

struggled with the pose ball for the stool, we met in-

world to solve this issue.

Figure 7- The workshop outcomes: tables and stools

(author proposal)

In my opinion, several factors contributed to the

positive outcomes:

- Previous preparation and checking (Special

thanks to Jerit Weiser who tried the chairs

to see if they were working properly, if the

text displayed on the notecard reader was

perceptible and gave his opinion on the

setting).

- Using written text so that participants could

visualize the instructions.

- Short and clear instructions.

- Managing the communication: hands up to ask

questions.

- Few issues/topics in each session in order to

avoid cognitive overload and finish the task

in the specified time.

I learnt that we can overcome SL technical

drawbacks. By collaborating with others we can

have good results. Next time, I intend to try some

collaborative work between the participants, may be

pair work to start with. [25]

One feature of MUVEnation course was the

interaction between instructors and peers. It was

quite motivating and helped us to get better learning

outcomes. After the workshop, we were asked to

describe the experience and reflect upon it. One of

my tutors, Dr. Steven Warburton from King‟s

College in London wrote Great story - thanks

Angelina. You've identified a number of useful

practices that helped make the workshop a success.

One of them is on managing the communication -

but what do you mean by "hands up to ask

questions" ... how did this work in practice? [26]

When I reflected about the communication and how

I managed it, I didn‟t quite explain how I achieved

“hands up” through avatars, so here is my reply:

Hi Steve,

I attended a workshop where the instructor, Massimo, used chairs that had a script that allowed

participants to put hands up if they had questions. I

thought it was a good idea because when you are

absorbed talking, giving instructions, it is more

difficult to read all the messages in the local chat.

So, if you look at participants and they have their

hands up, it is easier to address each at a time and

let them ask for clarification. That was what

happened in my workshop and it was easier to help

the participants. I must thank Cvetka who kindly

gave me the chair. [25]

My peer critics were very good and motivated me to

try to accomplish even better results next time.

As the workshop was delivered in Second Life, we

used our SL identity, our avatars. Mine (Angelina

Macedo) is Morgen String.

Observer 1 comments [27]

Morgen prepared a very nice setting for her

workshop: our working area was delimited by a

carpet and a cube, to sit on. In front of us a notecard

reader board and an example of the table we were

going to build.

I would like to comment briefly on the setting

because, although at first sight it could seem as

"standard" (rows of people facing a board), it was

somehow innovative and clever. Let's see how and

why.

Firstly, our seats had a double function: keep us

locked in place (thus reducing lag) and allow us to

rise our hands. I have to admit that almost nobody

raised hands to ask questions: we are all too used to

write directly in chat. In any case, since the number

of the avatars in the workshop was rather small, it

would have been possible to use it.

The other thing that I considered very clever and

original was the use of the notecard reader. I

explain: the workshop this time was delivered using

voice. This is much better from the instructor point

of view: no need to type, no problems with tired

fingers, more flexibility, no need to stick to a

notecard inside a Speakeasy (the content we

"read" once it is in open chat). But voice in

workshops is not good from the learner point of

view: it's easy to get distracted. One has to struggle

with edit window, values, arrows, textures etc (and

possible incoming IM, RL small interruptions, etc.)

It's very easy to miss an important passage, to forget

the exact value one has to enter or to get lost in a

messy inventory.

But here the Notecard reader board represented a

written text one could rely on, and allowed some

independence, rather necessary when the level of

skills is very different.

The workshop was divided in two parts: introduction

to the secrets of prim modeling and the production

of a table and a stool. Both parts went on smoothly

and everybody managed the two pieces of furnitures,

and event to add a poseball.

Morgen was in all moment very clear in her

explanations and helpful to those who had some

difficulties, and I think this was the first worskop I

ever attended that finished within the specified time.

Very good work, Morgen

Observer 2 comments [28]

[As I did for other workshops, I'm using the

analysis grid given us by Marga][24]

Planning and preparation

Spacial design and layout: Emulation of

RL: participants were sitting in rows in

front of a board.

Learning objectives were clearly outlined

at the very beginning of the workshop.

The instructor's discourse was prepared in

advanced

The physical organisation of learning

material: participants were given a folder

(at the beginning of the workshop) and a

notecard (at the end) by Morgen,

individually.

The workshop was free

Delivery of instruction

No assessment of prior knowledge, but the

workshop was advertized as being for

beginners.

Pre-pared activities to meet the knowledge

requirements; Morgen gave an introduction

describing the various options in the

"Object tab" and asked participants to play

with them for a while.

Conversational flow was done in voice

chat. There was also a board showing a

summary of the instructor's words.

Communication dynamics: Tutor ->

Learner

Free position for the teacher, constrained

position for participants

Learning materials were given to

participants in two times: at the beginning

and at the end. Both times, the instructor

gave the items to participants individually.

Except from the board, no media were used

Activity was exclusively centred in SL

Personalization of learning: the instructor

used adaptive pathways of communication

to come to rescue of a participant who was

lagging behind the group

Pedagogical approach: directive, focused

on rules procedures, both process and

result oriented

Follow up and evaluation

The instructor provided support and

feedback via voice chat, sometimes

reinforcing some terms by repeating them

in the local chat. Done on demand when

participants had problems.

The instructor monitored students' progress

visually and asking them questions on their

progress

Quality of feedback was informative

Assessment was informal.

Recall and transfer of learning

Recapitulation was done at the end of the

first part of the workshop, since the

creation of a stool was vey similar to the

creation of the table.

Participants were given a notecard at the

end of the workshop, containing all the

information she had been giving during the

workshop.

Personal comments

The workshop was well organized both in terms of

space (each participant had enough space to work).

The workshop objectives were stated at the

beginning and all participants managed to achieve

them by the end of the workshop. The delivery of

content was well paced. The audience targeted for

the audience (beginners) was right, even though

Morgen also helped step-by-step a participant who

was less experienced than the rest.

Here are a couple of tips I'm suggesting for a second

go of the workshop:

1. I would shorten the introductory part describing

the various options found in the "object tab".

Discussing a couple of them and maybe demonstrate

in front of the audience how they can affect a prim

would suffice. Also, rather than encouraging

participants to play with the various options as they

wish, I would ask them to do something specific, to

see how a certain option can affect the prim in

question (i.e. ask them to hollow a sphere, then a

cube and then compare the results) otherwise,

participants have no clear idea why their object

changed shape.

2. Instead of giving the material for the class to each

participant individually, have a giver object that

could distribute it. The distribution of the class

material can otherwise take a little time and

sometimes one or more participants might be

skipped unintentionally (I did this mistake at the end

of my own seminar: while I had a giver object for

the initial folder, I'm not sure why I didn't prepare a

similar object for the final notecard, which I

distributed to each participant individually: not a

good idea).

3. I personally prefer a workshop given in local chat, so that if I lag behind, I can easily go back a

couple of lines and catch up. I understand that

Morgen's board played the role of the local chat, but

to focus on it, one had to leave his/her object behind

and then go back to it. Also, voice chat always takes

a little while to work, requiring sometimes lengthy

initial tests. Actually at the beginning nobody could

hear Morgen, probably due to her internet

connection (indeed she crashed after a couple of

minutes), and we spent some time on that. Also, one

participant could not hear Morgen later, because

she was a bit too far. In all occasions I saw voice

being used, the same problems occurred, so it's a

voice issue, not Morgen's.

4. I could not get the poseball to work; even when I

tried later, I keep ending up sitting IN the floor (as

in a quicksand swamp) and not on the stool. I am

really not sure why. On the other hand, the stool

works fine without the poseball, so I decided not to

waste time to investigate the mishap further.

Well done Morgen.

This kind of interaction enriches all the participants

and contributes for the development of

collaboration, critical thinking and reflection as well

as for the building of the virtual learning

community.

The activities which were developed in-world have

proved that SL has a great potential for education as

other several researchers have already described. On

its island, some activities can be checked at the

landmark: MUVEnation 110.121.22.

Warburton & Perez-Garcia (2008) [14] defined four

key steps to deliver Hands-on Workshops. These

steps are visible in the practice described:

Planning and preparation;

Delivery of instruction;

Follow up and evaluation;

Recall and transfer of learning.

Therefore, it‟s very important to structure the

environment, reflect on our practice and build

transferability. It is also very important to set the

communication rules between all the participants in

order to avoid disruption, and design support for

students who get behind. The validation of the

workshop is not a closed process; on the contrary, it

is an iterative process that is built over time.

Recent research and our practices show that some

design patterns1 can be defined such as sharing

experiences, for example, stories/accounts of what

worked and what requires improvement (activities,

setting, results, our objectives, what we achieved,

what wasn‟t achieved, etc). Another factor is the

identification of problems that are common and of

the associated forces. Listing the successful

solutions is another useful design pattern. Finally,

sharing and discussing these patterns facilitate their

refinement and the creation of a design language.

This course provided me with some insights to

implement a learning project with my students to

learn English as a Second Language and develop

their Citizenship and themselves as global citizens.

This project is going to be implemented on a private

island because my students are teens, so they are not

allowed in Second Life grid which is for people over

18. On this island there are several schools from all

over the world where their teachers and students

develop learning projects, interact and collaborate in

a virtual learning community.

2.1.5 SL drawbacks

Some potential problems require reflection in order

to be undertaken. According to Kovela (n.d.) [29], it

takes too much time to be in SL, the content creation

and its updates require a lot of space and the

copyright raises some issues. Although SL system

tries to protect the rights of the content builder, it is

not OpenSource as it is in an outsider server. The

problem comes with the possibility of losing all the

data if the servers are down or if the island is

destroyed.

Another problem that needs to be dealt with, is

raised by content connected to intolerance, sex,

commerce, fraud…

Other authors refer the need for improvement of

other issues that have a strong impact in

communication and interaction between avatars. For

instance, avatars don‟t control the way they look at

one another, or the facial expressions very well. The

face and the eyes keep the same expression by

default, though several progresses are being made in

this field. The expressivity is reinforced by the

paralinguistic symbols in written text.

Some technical issues must be improved such as lag

and crashes and they imply people to spend more

time doing a task and therefore waste time which

can demotivate people and eventually lead people to

reject SL.

3 CONCLUSIONS

Second Life is making an impact in the academic

world as it has unique features that potentiate

collaboration, sharing, decision making, critical

thinking and experiential learning in the virtual

learning community.

Nevertheless, educators must be aware of SL

challenges when transferring their first life

pedagogical approaches to their second life teaching.

1 Pattern – a problem which occurs over and over again in

our environment, and then describes the core of the

solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use

this solution a million times over, without ever doing it

the same time twice” (Christopher Alexander, 1977 in

Warburton & Perez-Garcia, 2008) [16].

Teachers need to learn how to teach in SL as Real

Life teaching expertise does not guarantee SL

teaching positive experiences.

Although there are some constraints that have to be

overcome, it is undeniable that SL encourages

people to interact and collaborate in a way that

conveys a sense of presence that is not found in

other media. This virtual world is growing in

popularity because it provides social networking;

the ability to share rich media seamlessly; the ability

to connect with friends; a feeling of presence; and a

connection to the community (Austin & Boulder

2007)[30].

So far, research demonstrates that SL has a great

potential for learning which can be enhanced with

the improvement of technology and communication.

This needs further improvement but it has already

provided evidence that SL can help to develop skills

concerning socialization, peer and group work,

critical thinking and problem solving.

Deutschmann (2009) [31] states that The key element

here is, according to Svensson, not the technology,

the simulations or the effects per se, but the fact that

SL and worlds like it allow for meetings with “real

people „playing‟ themselves or having alternate

personas), for working collaboratively with remote

participants” and, for the creation of a “place and a

unified spatial interface” for such meetings.

To sum up, we can conclude that SL has a great

potential for education, being required that educators

identify and select the strategies and activities that

are more appropriate for face-to-face context or

virtual context.

Nevertheless more research is required to make this

world more accessible and easy to use so that

educators can optimize these virtual worlds for the

teaching and learning process.

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